Interesting new piece by Rutger van der Hoeven citing my research on the political economy of ageing (e.g. here and here):

“A provocative answer emerges if one sticks with the generational framework: if one holds on to the idea that a particular age cohort is rebelling against its dispossession. Is the perpetrator then another generation? That idea lies at the heart of several studies that attempt to look at today’s world through a macro lens. A few years ago, Tim Vlandas, professor at Oxford, wrote a study entitled From Gerontocracy to Gerontonomia: The Politics of Economic Stagnation in Ageing Democracies. One in ten people worldwide is over the age of 65, he observed; in the European Union it is one in five, and in some wealthy countries such as Japan even more. This is a tremendous success, Vlandas argued, thanks to the prosperity, welfare states, and medical technology that the twentieth century has brought. But it is transforming the world dramatically. For the first time in world history, there are now more people on Earth over the age of 65 than under the age of 5. By 2050 there will be more people aged 65 and over than people between the ages of 10 and 24.

That is an economic problem, but also a political problem, Vlandas argues. What you see, country after country, is that the older generation shapes politics around protecting its own interests. In practice, that often means protecting accumulated wealth, accumulated rights, and accumulated power. Older people generally punish their governments harshly for inflation and taxes because these erode their assets and pensions. They have much greater tolerance for high unemployment, low economic growth, and high public debt, because these are all problems they experience relatively little themselves. The result, Vlandas argues, is sluggish economies geared toward the interests of older people: “old economies,” or gerontonomia. Because virtually the entire world, apart from Africa, is ageing, the world’s political economy is ageing as well.” [own translation from Dutch]

For a review of the relevant literature, see here.

I’ve argued elsewhere that ageing European electorates create a new progressive growth dilemma